China enticed an American entrepreneur with the opportunity of helping build a cutting-edge automobile company in the world’s largest car market, then used the uncertainty cast by COVID-19 to steal his intellectual property, the businessman says.
Steve Saleen, founder of specialty high-performance sports car manufacturer Saleen Automotive, and his partner Charles Wang, a Chinese immigrant and former attorney at a New York law firm, were approached in late 2015 about forming a joint venture with the city of Rugao to manufacture automobiles.
By early 2020, everything was going according to plan. The initial product, an SUV, was in certification and the employee headcount had swelled from three to nearly 1,000. The factory, armed with 470 state-of-the-art robots, was ready for production.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
With both Saleen and Wang stuck in the U.S. as flights to China were grounded, the Rugao government seized on an opportunity to “nationalize the company,” according to Saleen.
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